The Ant's Gift: A Study of the Shahnameh

By Dick Davis and Shahrokh Meskoob

Shahrokh Meskoob was one of Iran’s leading intellectuals and a preeminent scholar of Persian literary traditions, language, and cultural identity. In The Ant’s Gift, Meskoob applies his insight and considerable analytical skills to the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran completed in 1010 by the poet Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi. Tracing Iran’s history from its first mythical king to the fall of the Sasanian dynasty, the Shahnameh includes myths, romance, history, and political theory. Meskoob sheds new light on this seminal work of Persian culture, identifying the story as at once a historical and poetic work. While previous criticism of the Shahnameh has focused on its linguistic importance and its role in Iranian nationalism, Meskoob draws attention to the work’s pre-Islamic cultural origins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Release date: Jul 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9780815655107

Book preview

Author’s Introduction

THE ANT’S GIFT is an inquiry into a few of the concepts essential to the Shahnameh, divided into five chapters: Time, Creation, History, Sovereignty, and Speech.

Time is first and last, it is the bringer and bearer away of things and the hidden thread which links these chapters together. In some mythologies time existed even before Creation, and in others it is the first thing to be created.

History is the story of man’s past in time.

Sovereignty is the management of the wheel of time in the world, according to the way of heaven.

And finally Speech is the means by which the poet is able to escape from the destructive trap of time, the way in which he dies without dying. Why is it that Ferdowsi says that after death I shall not die, since I am alive?

The Shahnameh is a historical work that is both an account of Iran’s history in the world, and has itself been, from its first appearance, a strong pillar in the history of the Iranian people. Above and beyond this, the Shahnameh is a work that arises from history and is a product of tradition, one that as well as giving us insight into the preconceptions and religious and intellectual beliefs of its creator contains the source of many narratives from the distant past; for example:

The mythology and worldview of the Avesta.

The practical and ethical wisdom of the Pahlavi Mirror for Princes genre.

Royal chronicles, the political and social culture of the Sasanids.

The written and oral culture of the population of Khorasan during the first centuries of the Islamic era.

It organized and preserved whatever had come down to the population of Khorasan by either oral or written means, whether consciously or as often as not unconsciously, such as man’s knowledge, his conception of this world and of the world to come, ethics and behavior, national sentiment, worldview, and—in a word—their social memory. What reached Ferdowsi were not simply Zurvanite and Mithraic ideas, or Zoroastrian and Mazdean didactic notions, and so on, but through the maker’s arrangement—and sometimes lack of arrangement—it was all of these; that is, the accumulated social memory of an invisible past, and in another way of its religious and cultural beliefs, its customs and social norms.

For this reason I have tried to present the book as a historical work, but one to be read and studied on its own terms. It is not enough simply to dig into history and get to know it in order to understand and appreciate the Shahnameh. This book is more a poetic work than a historical one, and it’s not the task of poetry to gather together knowledge of past generations; leaving aside a specific perspective and knowledge, information whether conscious or unconscious available to different generations will lead to different kinds of discovery and appreciation. For example, the social memory of a traditional society, in both its observed and unobserved aspects, passes from generation to generation, until it one day reaches particularly auspicious soil from which it causes a massive shady tree to grow, or it reaches a brackish marsh in which it abandons us to our own mirage. A tradition lives in searching to surpass itself, to leave itself behind; this is like the relationship between a river and its source—if it doesn’t flow onward it becomes standing water. A dead tradition either mourns continuously over the corpse of what has gone, or it involuntarily and mechanically repeats the customs of the past.

A society’s collective memory is, unconsciously, its history, a history that exists but is unaware of its own existence as history, and studying it is like researching and coming to know a man’s unconscious soul, and as a result changing what was unconscious into something conscious by uncovering what was hidden. Digging into and coming to know a collective memory is also a process of awakening sleeping layers of the past, and bringing their richness into historical consciousness. If we imagine tradition as a mountain whose crags have risen up from the heart of the land and whose summit reaches to the heavens, Ferdowsi is in the heavens standing astride the mountain, on a rocky ridge. He shows the observer standing next to him the vast and varied view of the cultural regions before them; this resembles the moment when we stand on the top of Mount Damavand, like the sun shining over the world, and see beneath our feet to the south and north the dry plain of the Dasht-e Kavir and the green Caspian Sea. Ferdowsi is the highest mountain and Hafez—who developed to its utmost the art of lyric poetry—is the most beautiful garden in our world.

The history of the genesis and assembly of the Shahnameh, its previous sources and its subsequent fate, has until now, whether at a scientific or popular level, been studied mainly in terms of literary history, the investigation of manuscripts, and similar concerns. It is true that researches of a literary-historical nature, and the labors of respected scholars who have worked in this field, are the first condition for any knowledge of the national epic of Iran and its composition, and very useful scholarly research has been carried out along these lines. But above and beyond this, like every great work of art the Shahnameh is not a work that can be interpreted in only one way, and depending on the perspective and mindset of the observer it has different clear and also hidden aspects to it. The work of a poet like Ferdowsi is the creation of a new manifestation, a new perspective and aesthetic, the discovery of what is undiscovered; not, for example, the repetitive versification of a royal chronicle, forgotten myths, stories mixed up with legends, and bits of history. In one way his work is the discovery of inward, unconscious meanings within the history of mankind and the world, and in another it is the reflection of these meanings in language that is a mirror of untarnished beauty. And this role of the poet cannot be achieved solely with the help of conscious knowledge; if it could be, scholars would be poets. It is rather the poet’s unconscious that leads this work to its auspicious end.

This is not to say that a poet depends on ignorance and a lack of awareness, it is rather the cognizance of unknown things, of things that cannot be known; of what works within us and forms us without our knowing it; of the importance and validity of the action of things that are unknown. For example, we see certain mythological motifs and cultural meanings in the Shahnameh which a thousand years ago were unknown to Ferdowsi, and which, influenced by archeological discoveries, by imaginative suppositions, by historical and etymological and mythological investigations and so on . . . have been brought to light and acknowledged. We can instance one or two examples of this: the relationship between the myth of Jamshid and the tradition of Now Ruz and its unknown sources, that is, the Zurvanite and Mazdean image of time in Ferdowsi’s thought; similarly, the concept of an ethical viewpoint, and of acting in an ethical manner, or of an epic elevation of the material above and beyond the business of the visible world, whose origin and roots must probably be sought in Mazdean ontology and the existence of Ahriman and Ahura Mazda; these are things which the poet himself could not have known. Another case in point is the source of the concept of kingship, political philosophy, and the notion of the exercise of justice, as it appears in the Shahnameh.

And so we are here dealing with two kinds of ignorance, history’s lack of awareness and the poet’s lack of awareness; and there is another lack of awareness to add to these, which is the ignorance of the present writer. One of literary criticism’s concerns is to account for these unknown things, to bring the unknown to light. The Ant’s Gift is an endeavor, an attempt, to contribute to this project, insofar as the present writer’s lack of qualifications for such a task will allow. During this search, in order to describe the underlying conceptions and concerns, at various points and in each case appropriately, Zurvanite and Mazdean mythology, the ancient and more recent recensions of the Avesta and Sasanian literature, or the Islamic beliefs of Ferdowsi’s own time have been taken into consideration. But here the motive is not scientific research into the cultural knowledge of an interior mental state, or the given facts and reality of the outer world; rather it is an attempt to discover more about the worldview implicit in the Shahnameh, from its stories, narratives, and conversations—a search undertaken in the hope of a new apprehension of its truth.

But truth is linked to and involved with the realities of time and place. No truth exists inalterably, or outside of time and place (as has already been mentioned). Art too, like truth, exists in relation to a perceptible time and place, and the reason for this relationship is ahistorical; traces that remain from a given time outlast that time and in each subsequent historical era they acquire a new meaning (but they do not transcend time, firstly since they are originally products of time, and secondly, as we have said, since we have situated them in relation to each historical era). The aim of this endeavor is more that we see today—in this time and place in which we find ourselves—what can be gathered from the Shahnameh. The Ant’s Gift is mainly an attempt to use the advantages of what is now known in order to find the unknowns of that time, and to look into the poet’s unconscious, in the belief that this viewpoint will allow us to see the existence of the poem and the poet in a fresh light. The discussion is concerned with what we as modern-day readers can understand from the work of a poet from the past. In addition to the scientific researches of scholars of history and literature in order to understand the poem and its poet and his conscious knowledge, how can we salvage the testimony of his heart and his inner vision, that which cannot be discovered? How can his unconscious be our consciousness?

Until now the Shahnameh has been considered and studied mainly as a literary, historical, and national masterpiece, and also as a treasury of wisdom and prudent advice. Perhaps it is now time that, along with the success of these numerous and very valuable achievements, the Shahnameh should be considered in the way that Ferdowsi himself thought of history, or for example in the way that Sohravardi considered the theory of sovereignty, or Hedayat considered Khayyam, and in his Kafka’s Message our own times. Instructive examples of this kind (especially in the way Western scholars have reflected on their own literature) are not rare. But to think in this way requires bravery, not in the sense of fearlessness, of being negligent or ignorant of fear, but in the sense of conquering fear, of experiencing it and then emerging from its grip.

Leaving aside a small number of literate readers, for most former generations, the readers of the Shahnameh were an audience who listened to it, and the work was transmitted to them through intermediaries like oral storytellers or other performers, along with the knowledge and perspective appropriate to that particular time; they read through their ears. But these days if a reader wishes to study a text like this he can do so without any intermediary, and according to his own capacity and ideas he can use fresh methods, knowledge, and perspectives as a man arranges and rearranges pieces on a chessboard, and each time he will arrive at new meanings. New combinations of elements create new patterns of meaning, as a painter does when he applies various different colors to a painting’s canvas. The Ant’s Gift is one of these patterns, a kind of reinterpretation of elements towards a rereading of the book, on the part of a well-meaning reader. What you see here is an interpretation and paraphrase of the Shahnameh according to two categories, what is consciously known, and what is not consciously known, as follows:

An explanation of the concept of time, or for example the notion of the passage of history, the theory of sovereignty, fate and man’s role, and similar matters, as Ferdowsi thought of them; an account of the poet’s consciousness as it appears in the Shahnameh.

An inquiry into the hidden sources of these concepts and notions, which flowed like an unseen river in society’s collective unconscious and in the poet’s mind, about which the period’s knowledge had no information, and of which the poet was thus unaware.

An inquiry into the return to the first causes and their unconscious transmission by the poet in the Shahnameh.

A sketch of the interpretation and transmission of the Shahnameh as presented in this inquiry, the poem’s attention to first causes, to the beginning of time, and its return to the end, the negation of time, time as the destroyer. In Ferdowsi’s thought, how can one escape from this trap? What is the nature of speech, the elixir against death, and balm for the pain of nothingness?

The idea of writing The Ant’s Gift, and presenting it as an offering to the great poet of Tus, was conceived in my mind some years ago. My most recent complete rereading of the Shahnameh with a view to this end began—I am unsure why, as it was contrary to my usual way of going about things—with the seventh volume of the Moscow printing of the Shahnameh, with the reign of Eskandar, the Ashkanians, and then the story of Ardeshir. Looking back on that time now, I think the reason for this may have been the particular attention I paid, during the first years after the Islamic Revolution, to Ferdowsi’s conceptions of sovereignty and politics. This rereading, what with writing down comments, filling up index cards, and making footnotes, took me over a year until I got to the end of volume six and the Kayanid dynasty, so that by Aban of 1366 (November 1987) I had finally read the whole work through. After this I was involved with other tasks for a while, though I was constantly thinking about the Shahnameh, until in the summer of 1380 (2001) I began writing this study. While I was working on it, in May 2002, at the suggestion of my good friend Ms. Sorur Kasmai, a private class was organized in order to study the Shahnameh, meeting once a fortnight, with each session lasting for two hours; eight friends took part at first, four of whom stayed until the end, which was in July 2004. The classes consisted of written lessons, which were discussions of the chapters of this book recorded on tape. By relevant comparisons between different interpretations of the nature of truth and also of versions of reality in our culture and Western culture, the scope of our conversations widened to include references to Western literature.

Three chapters of The Ant’s Gift have previously been published in Iran Nameh 20, No. 1 (Winter 2002); 20, No. 4 (Fall 2002); 21, No. 3 (Fall 2003); since these chapters now include additions and revisions inserted during two separate printings, they are now in a more complete form. After reading two chapters of the book, my good friend Jalil Dustkhah made a number of useful suggestions, most of which I have adopted. References to the edition of the Shahnameh edited by Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh are indicated by V, for volume, followed by the page number (for example V1:12, meaning volume one, page twelve). For references to sections of the poem that have not yet been printed in this edition, I have used B, for book, followed by the page number, referring to the Moscow edition.

15 December 2004

Time

I SHALL BEGIN with Now-Ruz, which Jamshid established and in so doing placed time on a new footing. In the Shahnameh Jamshid is the greatest of kings, and in mythology he is the first man.¹ Feraydun and Kay Khosrow are two kings who both cleanse the world of Ahriman’s evil (embodied in Zahhak and Afrasyab) and bring about a rebirth, but Jamshid does neither of these things; rather he is the founding monarch, who with the help of Clear Mind (rowshan ravan), with the understanding and knowledge that is within him, confers order and a civilized stability on the savagery of man’s life: for fifty years he draws iron forth from stone, and from this fashions weapons and armor such as cuirasses, shields, swords, and so forth; for another fifty years he develops the arts of spinning, weaving, the cutting of clothes, sewing, and laundering. Then for fifty years he establishes the occupations of priests, warriors, farmers, and craftsmen, and in this way social structures are formed. Then he sets demons to building walls, and raising towers and ramparts, houses and refuges; he discovers jewels and precious stones and fine scents; he reveals the secrets of medicine, boatbuilding, and voyaging by sea; he rises into the heavens on the backs of demons, and shines down from that height like a sun glittering in the air. During his reign, no one was aware of pain or suffering, or of death. He was the lord of men and demons and of all the world. Then, he saw no one but himself in the world and he claimed godlike status, so that the divine farr fell away from him, and was transferred to Feraydun and Garshasp.² His greatness is indicated by the fact that he alone included in himself the achievements of the three great categories of myth and epic—the priesthood, warriors, and farmers and craftsmen.

In order to convey the greatness of the acts carried out by this king whose face was as a houri’s, a shining sun to behold (Vendidad, Fargard 2) we must look in the Shahnameh and listen to Ferdowsi’s words. Here I am simply making an inventory in order to describe this man who ruled over the earth and the heavens, men and supernatural beings, and who also by his decree brought time into being. The day on which, with the help of demons, he reached into the skies was the first day of spring, the dawn of earth’s awakening, and the balancing of night and day. Jamshid celebrated this day of victory and we know that from a mythological point of view such a celebration is not simply a manifestation in itself, but also a symbol of the repetition of time, a returning to a former state, a renewal of the seasons within nature, and a regeneration of life. Jamshid named this day the beginning of the new year, on the day of Hormozd, in the month of Farvardin. Time was now numbered and subject to measurement; days were considered units of time, having their own identity and character, taking their place within the months. Years were marked by a beginning and an end, and escaped from the endless round of indistinct anonymity.

In this fashion, at the behest of Jamshid of the Clear Mind, the new perception of day—and of night which was created in conjunction with it—was no longer that of an empty shell of light or darkness. This is how day and night were named, how they came into being and were known, and so were necessarily named. Man’s daily experience of life gave this eternal revolution content and meaning; worldly and infinite time were measured by us, who live our lives out in the world, and so time became human and finite; in other words, this entire concept, since it became involved with the passage of our brief life and with the nature of our destiny, took on the meaning of fate (or fortune). Although time and fate appear to be synonymous, fate, rather than time, implies the sadness and happiness, the successes and failures, of our life’s unfolding.

Fate is time, if you examine it / and no one has the means to judge it

SHAHNAMEH B9:311

Hafez says: Fate’s broken promise gives me no time, and also, Fate’s faithlessness, the grief it brings, its deceit are what troubles him; as others have done, he complains of the deeds, the tyranny, and the indiscriminateness of Fate’s faithless cruelty. Seen in this way, Jamshid brought the indifferent, impalpable revolutions of worldly time down to earth, so that Fate became the warp and weft of our existence, the existential truth of we who live on the earth. We could evaluate our own life against that continual passing which has no beginning and no end, so that we would know not only the days of our arrival and departure, but in comprehending the past we could also become acquainted with the future, and with that which transcends all things, that is, eternity.

Jamshid of the Clear Mind, the sun-king and, as his name (Yima Khshaeta) indicates, the splendid and shining one, set forth a new plan for the beings of this world in this new time with its new ways. He is the first exemplar and paradigm of Man the Creator, one who recognizes no limits, and when he looks at his creative wisdom and skill he thinks that he himself is the World-Creator. He loses his God-given glory and becomes a homeless wanderer for many years. Finally this sun-king, like the sun setting in the ocean, hides away in the depths of the China Sea, but—like the sun rising out of the sea—he is dragged out of the water and cut in two with a saw.

In the Avesta, Jamshid’s downfall comes about because of the lie, his rising in revolt against the ways of the world and its Creator. But in the Shahnameh, Jamshid is defeated because of his pride, and it is this that brings about his end. In our mythology Az (Greed) is an insatiable demon that devours and destroys everything, including, in the end, itself. In the world of the Shahnameh, whose roots derive in part from a much older system of thought, the desire for more and the ambition to rise above others that is felt by those in the grip of Az, destroy their wisdom, to the point that no act or possession can ever satisfy them. Jamshid is the first of those in the grip of Az; he says to the priests, the sages, and the wise men,

I have made the world splendid with my virtue,

The earth is as I would wish it to be

Your food, sleep, and rest derive from me

So too clothes, and your well-being, are from me

Greatness, the crown, and kingship are mine,

Who says there is any other king than me?

V1:45

Jam rose up in the path of Ahriman and demons, and said, I created water, I created the moon, I created the land, I created plants, I created the sun, I created the stars and I created the heavens, I created the beasts, I created mankind, I created all things that have been created. He spoke the lie, affirming this (belief) that he had created (the material world).³

But how can this belief be overcome? In creating thought and the concept of creation, Jamshid’s Clear Mind is tantamount to the human equivalent of God. And if creation is not perceived and recognized, what is the world other than a body without a soul? If we take the insistent repetition of I into account we can think that here is the first man, or greatest king, to reflect on his own nature and being—and finally on thought itself—as the creator of things, or who considered thinking as the origin of what it is to be human. Without such awareness the two human concepts of being and nothingness cannot be distinguished from one another and neither can be recognized. In the same way, in the Avesta (as we shall see) the creation of life cannot happen without the help of human qualities. And Jamshid is the greatest recipient of divine glory, the king who is the maker of a world that, if it were not fashioned according to our wishes, would not be a place of gratification and comfort so much as a confused chaos of unbridled nature.

In the Vendidad (Fargard 11) Zoroaster asks Ahura Mazda, Who was the first human with whom you conversed? Which person was it to whom you first revealed the faith of Ahura and Zoroaster? And Ahura Mazda replies,

Jam, whose face was as the sun, possessor of fine flocks, was the first of